4/5 ★ – Speady9's review of Borderlands 3.

I don't know how to feel about Borderlands 3. On one hand, it's one hell of a cap to every previous game in the series; one that improves upon gameplay and fluidity. On the other hand, its pacing and writing are wildly sloppy. Gonna get the gameplay out of the way here first, because it's quite good. This is the most fun I've had with this "looter shooter" series, and Borderlands 3 makes apparent improvements to the previous entries. New additions to combat include climbing structures and sliding feel really nice once you get used to things. Even the boss variety is quite fun, with each one offering different strategies of defeat. And of course, the weapon variety is tremendous here! One thing however that I did not enjoy here, and it kinda has to do with the game's narrative (which I'll get to later), is the over-ambitious massive worlds that feel a bit empty. This is the first entry in the series away from PS3/360, so it utilizes the new hardware well to deliver TONS of large maps and planets to explore. Unfortunately, even picking up as many side missions as I could, the amount of playability just isn't abundant enough for these expansive maps, which makes traversing them even more tedious. It only makes things a little worse too with bugs scattered throughout the game. (Nothing really game-breaking, but it shouldn't be an excuse for a game that's almost 3 years old now.) The writing and overall story is pretty rough, and I'm sure the majority will agree with me here. I can understand why some won't care about this, considering the games are designed to be these co-op RPG shooters. But as someone who actually enjoys sci-fi worlds and quite enjoys the bounty hunter story being told through this series, I was shocked and pretty disappointed by they handled certain things here. The plot of Borderlands 3 pulls a ton from every game before it (including Tales From The Borderlands), which is something I can appreciate for what seems like the finale to an full trilogy. Certain choices made were not good though, especially with character deaths that had no time to breathe between the comedy. Hell, even characters like the Calpyso Twins and Ava were poorly written, which made me ultimately not care for them at all. And the series isn't a stranger to comedic dialogue, but this one tries just a bit too hard to be with the times of internet culture and edgy humor, which makes most of the jokes more cringe than brilliant. It's all over the place, which makes the pacing feel incredibly slow, and thus, makes the game a slow drag. I definitely don't hate Borderlands 3. It makes some really poor choices with its execution of concluding a story that began more than a decade ago, but makes up for it with some incredibly engaging combat. Unless you're a hardcore fan of this sci-fi tale about hunters and alien vaults, one that has played and enjoyed the story thus far, you'll definitely have a fun time with friends. Otherwise, keep your expectations in check. It's a conclusion that sets up for a new "generation" of the series, although I personally wouldn't want any more from this story.